Christine Field - Life Skills for Kids: Equipping Your Child for the Real World

A comprehensive and well-researched book. A treasure trove of ideas I intend to use in my family!

Debra Bell, author of The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling

Christine Field has done it again! Life Skills for Kids reflects the simple, practical lessons she (and her husband) have gleaned from organizing and raising a homeschooling household with four children. Christine has thoughtfully laid out a topical list of skills along with practical suggestions on what to do and say in order to effectively equip our children. Parents should read and reflect on these chapters togetherthey (and their children) will be richly rewarded.

Rob Shearer, publisher, Greenleaf Press

Not only is this book excellent for parents, it is also an excellent resource for all those who want to teach life skills to their students. It is a very comprehensive curriculum guide for equipping children for the real world. If you are one who lives life with purpose, you will find this an excellent source for instruction.

Emilie Barnes, director of More Hours In My Day

Teaching children important life skills is one of the greatest things a parent can do for a child. Life Skills for Kids is a wonderful resource for every parents library.

Kathy Peel, president of Family Manager, Inc. and author of Be Your Best: The Family Managers Guide to Personal Success

Is your child really prepared for life? You may think so until you read Life Skills for Kids. Christine Field takes you step by step through a carefully thought-out series of Maxims of Maturity (MOMs), helping to guide parents in teaching skills to their children in fourteen crucial areas. This book is well researched, practical, and best of alldoable.

Rhonda Barfield, author of Eat Healthy for $50 a Week

In an era of rapid and radical cultural change, many Christian parents have developed blurred vision when it comes to family life. Life Skills for Kids is a corrective lens that will help them see clearly that God designed children to grow best at home with their parents. Christines practical insights not only restore vision for why, but bring into clear focus how to restore home life to the center of your childs life. Read and see!

Clay Clarkson, Executive Director of Whole Heart Ministries and author of Educating the Whole Hearted Child

Every family should read this book! Christine has provided dozens of practical steps to help us equip our children for life. This is a book that I will be referring to for the rest of my parenting years.

Jonni McCoy, author of Miserly Moms and Frugal Families

Life Skills for Kids is easy to understand, with uncomplicated principles that promote success as soon as they are practiced! For any mom who has dreams and goals for her child, Christine provides the directions necessary to reach those goals

Ellen Banks Elwell, author of The Christian Moms Idea Book

L IFE S KILLS FOR K IDS
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( NRSV ) are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2000 by Christine M. Field

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Field, Christine M., 1956

Life skills for kids: equipping your child for the real world / by Christine M. Field.
eISBN: 978-0-307-76888-9
1. Children-Life skills guides. 2. Child rearing. I Title.

HQ781 .F48 2000
649*. 1 dc21 99-055081

v3.1

This book is lovingly dedicated to my best friend, my husband, Mark. Thanks for all the wonderful years of this great adventure of family life!

A special thank you to my artists-in-residence, Clare and Caitlin, who drew some of the illustrations for this book. A big hug to Gracie and Daniel, who inspire me to press on.

I wrote this book because I needed it for my own family. We have chosen to order the super-sized plate of parenting. That is, we have them, we train them, we homeschool them, we mentor them. A few years into this process, we observed that our academic program was going great, but issues of character development, life vision, and practical life skills needed serious attention. How, I asked, were we to accomplish that?

Even with four great kids and a lifestyle I dearly love, I had begun to feel that the super-sized plate was a little excessive. I had too much work to do. Teaching the children was a full-time job in itself, and added to that was the task of running a home, our involvement in church, and our support of our childrens other interests. I found myself resenting the extra work while still feeling growing concerns about the big gaps in my childrens education. My eight year old could read almost any book in the library, but she didnt know how to dry dishes. And I saw so many other areas in which she would need instruction before becoming an adult. My children needed practical life education in order to know how to take care of themselves and their loved ones in the real world.

How overwhelming! The last thing I needed was another project or program to do with the kids. How could we fit another commitment into our already overcommitted lives?

Then it became clear to me that the solution was so obviousget the children involved in everyday life alongside the adults in the family. If they spend time with adults, they will learn to be adults. If we intentionally expose them to the everyday life skills we take for granted, they will become equipped for adulthood.

What if you dont homeschool? Youre probably even busier than our family with work and other commitments. But you are still your childs first teacher, and you possess a wealth of information and practical skills. Why not share these with your children and give them a legacy of life skill confidence?